Company Affair

Two things determine customer dissatisfaction. The customer can tell you and make a complaint or they can stop being a customer and find a new provider. We all have experience of bad customer service and choose to deal with it by telling the company just what the problem is….or by finding a new source for the product or service. When customers leave it is known as customer turnover.

High levels of customer service can give a major competitive advantage in fields where pricing or technology are equal. This advantage is gained by listening to customer complaints and then reacting to them.

Listening and responding are important but often not enough. The key is to make process improvements so that these types of situations are eliminated in the future. Within the discipline of quality management this is known as continuous improvement.

Therefore complaints should be collected and identified at all levels of the organization. This is known as customer complaint tracking. Complaints should not be viewed in a negative way but rather as an opportunity to develop better products and services. Finding the root cause of the complaint and fixing it improves the quality levels of your organization. There are complaint handling software packages available that can handle this for your organization.

I had the opportunity to visit Singapore for 3 weeks in July. It was a long flight – 14 hours so I arrived there feeling somewhat jetlagged. After I booked into my wonderful hotel and rested I began to explore my surroundings.

First of all Singapore is an exceptionally clean and safe place. The food is wonderful and there are great opportunities for shopping.

I really enjoyed the Singapore Zoo and also visited the botanical gardens and the bird park. (You can visit the ‘night zoo’ which really is a must see experience!) They also have the beautiful orchid gardens and underwater aquarium – Sentosa Island.

The weather was hot while I was there and is indeed warm all year round. Luckily most of the buildings are ultra modern and there is lots and lots of air conditioning to be appreciated!!

I stayed in one of many five star Singapore hotels just off Orchard Road.. There were big rooms with maid service, kitchen facilities, and shuttle buses to malls etc.

I also used Singapore as a base for a weekend trip to Malaysia or other areas of south east Asia. All in all I had a fantastic visit to a wonderful part of the world.

Becoming a sales executive for a Fortune 500 company can seem like a monumental task.  You generally start out as a trainee and have to work your way up the company ladder.  To greatly increase the chances of your success in the sales industry it is wise to invest in sales management training. The on-the-job training you receive may only get you so far. Seeking out specific training workshops and seminars to supplement what you may learn in the office will help you acquire the skills needed to advance rapidly within the organization.

If you ever examine your own career development, you may realize that you’ve been in your current position for several years without any advancement even though your work is excellent.  There just doesn’t seem to be much room to move up in your current department.   Developing good management skills or other skill sets outside sales can increase the likelihood that you advance.  Investing in outside management training could make you eligible to transfer to another department and get your promotion that way.

Management training is designed to help you to build the skills that can help you manage and work with people more effectively.  Some of the skills that you will develop as part of management training includes team development, motivation, coaching, communication skills, delegation, performance management and time management skills.

Management is concerned with how you get work done both individually and through the others in your team.  It is essential that you understand your strengths and the areas in which you can improve.    You should also understand your management style and can you adapt it to meet the needs of individual team members.

As a manager do you understand you role and responsibilities?  Do you motivate and enable your employees to succeed?  Are your coaching skills improving job performance and satisfaction?  Can you communicate more effectively throughout the organization?

Self-assessment can help you determine your current management skill set. Define your role within the organization in relation to your own leaders, peers and employees.  Understand the environment in which you work and its influence on you and your team.

Study how you delegate and document findings.  Look at your communication style and investigate the best communication strategies for your team.  Look for causes of job dissatisfaction.

As a manager you will influence others.  What tools do you use to gain employee commitment? Do you understand how to improve performance effectiveness?  Are your employees self-reliant or do they need direction?

Many of the skills learned during management training can directly increase productivity and motivation.  The overall goal of management training is to understand your strengths and weaknesses so that you can develop the competencies so that you can ultimately maximize your team’s performance.